About BorderFolio

Built from a question my broker couldn't answer

BorderFolio didn't begin as a startup idea. It began with a question about my own portfolio that nothing I used could answer: how much of this came from the money I contributed, and how much came from the investments themselves?

Once I tried to answer that properly, the rest followed. Fund fees, dividend withholding, fund domicile and tax residence stopped being separate topics and became part of the same story — because each of them acts on the part the investments were supposed to have added.

Most portfolio trackers show market value, performance, and dividends. None of them showed me that split. And none could tell me whether I held the right fund structure for my country, how much return was quietly disappearing to withholding taxes, or what would change if I moved somewhere else.

For international investors, choosing an ETF is rarely as simple as comparing ticker and expense ratio. Two funds tracking nearly the same index can produce different outcomes depending on where the fund is domiciled, where the investor lives, which exchange it trades on, and how dividends and estates are taxed. I built BorderFolio to make all of it visible — the contribution split first, then everything that quietly acts on it.

My investment journey

I'm a FIRE-focused investor managing my own portfolio across international brokers, currencies, exchanges, and fund domiciles. Building it — across broad-market index funds, growth and dividend ETFs, bonds, gold, REITs, US-domiciled funds, and Irish UCITS alternatives — repeatedly raised questions conventional trackers weren't designed to answer:

• How much return is lost to dividend withholding tax?
• Is switching from a US ETF to a UCITS equivalent actually worthwhile?
• How long until the tax savings offset the switching costs?
• How does US estate-tax exposure change as a portfolio grows?
• What happens to a portfolio when the investor changes residence?
• Which fund is the closest practical equivalent on another exchange?
• How quickly is the portfolio moving toward financial independence?

Answering these meant spreadsheets, tax research, fund documents, broker statements, and manual calculations. BorderFolio brings that analysis into one place.

The philosophy

My approach is shaped by principles associated with Burton Malkiel, John Bogle, and David Swensen: broad diversification, low costs, long-term discipline, focus on total return, evidence over market noise, and skepticism toward needlessly complex strategies.

But international investors face an added reality: even a simple index portfolio gets complicated once taxes, fund domicile, residency, and estate rules enter the picture. BorderFolio is designed to preserve the simplicity of long-term investing while handling the cross-border complexity underneath it.

Built by an engineer and investor

I'm Steffan, a software engineer building backend systems since 2018 — fintech, payments, market and blockchain data, cloud infrastructure, and high-volume distributed services. I built BorderFolio by combining that engineering experience with the analysis I wanted for my own investment decisions.

The result is more than a tracker: BorderFolio analyzes true returns, tax and withholding leakage, fund domicile, UCITS alternatives, estate-tax exposure, residence scenarios, dividend income, and progress toward financial independence.

The mission

BorderFolio's mission is to help people investing across borders understand what their portfolios truly earn — and make informed decisions using analysis that reflects their residency and fund domiciles. No generic dashboard. No pretending the same ETF structure works equally well for everyone. Just clearer data, transparent calculations, and a better view of the journey toward financial independence.

Built by a FIRE investor, for investors without borders.